With the NFL, addressing safety concerns, instituting a new rule that has moved the kickoff line up 5 yards to the 35-yard line, there's an additional risk for returners beyond typical hazards that include coverage men targeting them on seek-and-destroy missions.

Now players such as Cribbs, who holds the NFL record with eight career touchdowns on kickoff returns, will be pressed to weigh more carefully whether to take a knee as the new rule will likely fuel consistently deeper kickoffs. It is an intriguing subplot to the new season. The best returners, typically given a green light in determining when to run back a kickoff, could be routinely tempted to resist the safe option of a touchback while on a quest to strike with a big play.

By Tony Dejak, AP

The Browns’ Joshua Cribbs, who holds the NFL career record for kickoff-return touchdowns, says, "There are only a few kickers who have the leg to legitimately put it in the end zone every time without line-driving it."

"If you take it out, it'd better be all guts and glory — and you'd better get past that 20-yard line," says Tampa Bay Buccaneers kick returner Micheal Spurlock. "If you take it out from 7 yards deep and get tackled on the 14-yard line, you're going to hear about it."

Trajectory, Cribbs believes, could be the defining factor.

"There are only a few kickers who have the leg to legitimately put it in the end zone every time without line-driving it," says Cribbs. "Bombing it, with some hang time to keep you in the end zone. A lot of kickers will line-drive it, but their guys won't get down the field fast enough.

"We'll be 8 yards deep, but the ball will get there so quickly, we'll be able to bring 'em out with no problem."

At least that's one vision of how the game might be impacted by the rule change.

Others bemoan the change, contending that the return game has been instantly devalued. They suspect that one of the most exciting plays in football — the long kickoff return — will become more rare than a safety.

During the preseason, 39.3% of kickoffs resulted in touchbacks, compared to a 18.3% clip during the 2010 preseason. During the 2010 regular season, the rate was 17% .

Cobb — who witnessed three touchbacks in the opening quarter of the Packers' game vs. the New Orleans Saints, one more than occurred all of last season at Lambeau Field— fielded a third-quarter kickoff from Thomas Morstead 8 yards deep in his own end zone and brought it all the way back for a touchdown.

Cobb, who was momentarily upended about 30 yards into his runback before landing on his feet, tied Ellis Hobbs' four-year-old league record for his trouble.

NFL made change for safety reasons

The NFL, which often tweaks its rules to influence more scoring, adopted this change in March for the sake of safety. In conjunction with moving the kickoff line, the rule also prevents coverers from getting more than a 5-yard running start before the kick. Under the previous rule, would-be tacklers could mount a 15-yard head of steam before the kick.

By slowing the momentum of kick coverers at the start of the play and by reducing the number of returns, the league hopes to significantly reduce injuries. This follows a rule change last year that redefined wedge blocking by limiting the adjoining players in the scheme to two, outlawing tactics that sometimes included as many as five wedge blockers on a kick return.

The league has contended such emphasis on special teams was needed, given the higher injury rate on kickoffs when compared to other plays. When the wedge-blocking rules were modified, the NFL said, according to The New York Times, that seven injuries occurred on every 100 kicking plays in 2009, compared to five injuries on every 100 non-kicking plays.

When such details regarding injuries were requested this week, the NFL would not reveal specific data from 2010.

"The field just got 15 yards shorter for the kicking team," Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, chairman of the competition committee, said in March when the new rule was adopted by a 26-6 vote of team owners. "We are hopeful that the change will have an impact on the injury numbers."

McKay — whose primary returner with the Falcons, Eric Weems, led the NFC with a 27.5-yard average in 2010 — concedes the reduction in overall returns will hurt teams with lethal returners. Such pushback surfaced when the rule was proposed and discussed during league meetings.

"We don't have an answer to that other than to say yes, that is probably true," McKay said. "But we are always going to have player safety trump the competitive aspects of the game."

Although pure mathematics suggests that having fewer returns will reduce the number of opportunities for injuries, not everyone is certain that there will be less risk on the kickoffs that are returned — even with the starting point changed for coverers.

"Their reasoning is a little crazy," said former Pro Bowl returner Brian Mitchell, who holds the NFL records for career kick returns (607) and kick-return yards (14,014). "They're trying to stop the collisions, but shoot, any football player that runs downfield is a collision waiting to happen. Moving it up 5 yards or changing the running start won't make a difference."

Added Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris, "I don't know if that's going to be as big a factor as we think. The build-up of speed will still occur as you run through the speed zone, to the bully zone, to the confrontational point."

In any event, coaches and players are adjusting. Some coaches have contemplated aligning blockers closer to the goal line to set up returns, while all have had to consider whether they will change instructions for returners.

"I don't think the coaches like it," said Houston Texans special teams coach Joe Marciano. "But we've all got to play by the same rule. And the rule is fair."

Both Morris and Mike Smith, the Falcons coach, contend that they won't alter their strategies regarding where to instruct returners to take a touchback. Morris is on the conservative side on kick returns, contending that he generally doesn't want a ball returned if it's more than three yards deep into the end zone. Smith said his cutoff point will remain at four yards deep, providing that his returner is moving forward when fielding the kickoff.

Marciano has usually instructed returners to take a knee if the kick is more than five yards deep.

"In preseason, guys didn't abide by the rule and we didn't do so well," he said. The Texans ranked next-to-last in the NFL with an average of 19.4 yards on 12 returns during the preseason. "Those holes open and close so fast. We'll have a rule that sometimes says 'take a knee,' and other times it will be 'make a play.'

"You've got to coach situational football. It's like, 'Let's not screw it up.' If you're protecting a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter, and the offense is moving well, why risk it? Just give the offense the ball at the 20-yard line. But if you're in a more desperate situation, you want to try to make something happen."

Skill, setting, weather also factors

Marciano, in his 26th NFL season as a special teams coach, remembers the last time the kickoff line was at the 35-yard line — 1993. That season, when he coached with the New Orleans Saints, about 30% of kickoffs resulted in touchbacks. He says that league-wide, there were just four kickoffs returned for TDs the entire season.

"That year," Marciano recalls of kicker Morten Andersen, "Mort was just driving them into the end zone and we didn't have many returns against us."

Mitchell remembers that year, too. He began a 14-year NFL career with the Washington Redskins in 1990 (he later played with the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants), and points to the effectiveness of the best returners of that era as a hint that the rule change won't completely eliminate the threat provided by the elite.

"The good ones will find a way," Mitchell says. "And just like on offense and defense, the good special teams coaches will find the soft spots in the coverage."

He also thinks it would be a mistake to draw conclusions from patterns that occur early in the season. Kickers with the strongest legs, such as Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowler Billy Cundiff, should maintain an edge over the course of the season with high touchback rates, Mitchell says. But he suspects fatigue will affect others.

Of Redskins kicker Graham Gano, who has boomed kickoffs during preseason, Mitchell says, "By Week 5, his legs will get tired.

"It's like a golf swing," he added. "A lot of these kickers will be trying so hard to drill the ball because of the rule, and you know what happens when a golfer tries to hit it too hard? The ball goes nowhere. Watch as the season goes on, there will be a lot of kicks that don't make it to the end zone and wind up inside the 5."

Weather will be another factor to watch as the season progresses. Summer heat that aids distance early in the season will ultimately be replaced by more wind and precipitation.

"Think of Green Bay in November and December," says Marciano. "The ball is not going to travel as far. Sooner or later, you're going to get some returns and you're going to have to cover."

At the moment, the forecast for the impact of the kickoff rule is a bit hazy.

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